Conscious Masculine Leadership

The real gender issues at work won’t look like gender issues.

So if companies are willing to innovate, and willing to realize, like we do in #DEI, that everyone has a bias, then we can start to talk about masculine and feminine characteristics and behaviors – not genders, we pivot the gender conversation – and take the conversation and #awareness to a whole new level.

The real gender issues at work won’t look like gender issues.

There are gender issues, because these are the times we’re living in, but someone’s found a way to justify decisions, to quote the data, and prove that all of the boxes have been checked – in order to put a lot of energy into holding up a pronouncement that “There are no gender issues going on here!”

You will know that there are #gender issues at work when you look at the rate of true #satisfaction of the people, especially the #women and gender non-conforming people.

We are still in an age where a lot of adult white males are busy leading #hierarchies, checking boxes, and saying, “We do not have a problem here.” This is more than we’d like to think, and it’s happening for understandable reasons, like our culture pressured men to feel they could always have the answers, and handle any problem.

There are also a lot of men emerging that want to do it differently, namely younger men and men who have gone through psycho-spiritual awakenings.

If the true essence about the feeling at work is not a good one, for anyone, you have a gender issue.

And no amount of checking #HR boxes is going to “solve” this. No amount of #denial and hierarchical proclamation will white wash the situation. It’s very easy at this point for people to see through that. They probably try to speak to it, and when they’re ignored, or it is explained to them how they are wrong, they often quit, if they’re not gotten rid of first.

Handling this requires a new and different approach – one that is relational and innovative. It requires companies who actually want to lead progress to get real about the unspoken or undefined gender issues.

Going to layer deeper, gender issues are, at the root, a discrimination of #feminine energy. Because if a woman uses #masculine #energy at work, she’s actually rewarded and can get by quite alright. This is how women were historically able to win positions of power – by adopting masculine work traits. The other polarity that women experience in the workplace is to stay quiet and more docile to keep the job. Both of these are ways that women behave in a #patriarchal workforce, both of which women are growing tired of and is why you see them #quitting .

Culturally, we don’t have the words for it yet – but we want to be able to bring the archetypal feminine to work.

I was recently talking with a male client of mine who has a multi-million dollar business. He told me that he recognized that to hire women put his business at a competitive #advantage. Not only does he hire them, he knows that to genuinely listen to them, to let them share their wisdom, and come up with a new ideas, is the reason his business is outshining competitors.

He acknowledged that he sees the resistance in others to listening to women, and it is costing his competitors. Hiring innovative women, and him getting behind their ideas, has taken his business to a whole new level.

Because he understands a bit about masculine and feminine through our work together, he was able to see that the competitive advantage was feminine energy, which is inherently creational, intuitive, and relational.

This is what the traditional workplace has been missing. And it is the very thing that some companies are denying the need to look at, while other companies are pulling ahead because they’re not just putting women into positions of influence, but then they are allowing the entire body of wisdom – intuition and all – within that woman to influence decision making in the company.

Wow! Of COURSE this is where our world should be progressing right now. Why all the discomfort and resistance?? We have to let go of what is not working to advance to where the world is progressing.

It’s going that direction, and companies can innovate with feminine / masculine understanding and incorporation for #holistic development – or not, and be left behind.

My client was happy to watch his company be more successful, and his clients more happy because of the magic that these women brought. He is someone willing to innovate and get out of his own way. Are you?

For workplace consultations, leadership team development, and systems consulting, see www . SarahPoet . com / Reconciliation and book a call today.

Know someone who needs to see this? Thanks for sharing.

#genderequity #masculinefeminine #leadership #innovation #consulting #deiconsultant #hrinnovations #newparadigm #business #thoughtleadership

Women, have you felt hurt by the feedback, “You’re too masculine?”

I’m seeing a theme lately in women coming to me and sharing that men are giving them the feedback that they are too “masculine.”

Not only are they giving women this feedback, they are insulting women with it, and using it as a reason to leave the relationship.

I was so impacted this year by the look on a woman’s face as she told me that her husband of over twenty years was leaving her because she was “too masculine.” It was the look of a woman who knew how to be stoic and save face, but had no idea how to handle this information. The look of a woman who had done her best, and from the suit jacket she was wearing and the leather bag she was carrying, I’d say she had been a powerful and influential woman in her career. And now he was leaving her, and she wasn’t showing any emotion about it. She looked like she was just going to “handle it.”

I’m not placing women as the victims, here, don’t misread me. These nuances of realizing where we went wrong with feminine and masculine, and how to culturally and spiritually redefine these concepts and learn to apply them to our lives – it’s huge work that we are in as a collective right now.

But what a double bind for a woman who received cultural messages that to be a strong woman meant she had to be equal and climb the career ladders just like men. Women have learned to do this because it was necessary for survival, actually, and it also feels good to many to climb those ranks.

Until women themselves are beginning to realize more and more that that was never a game we would have designed on our own. It was a game we inherited. The rules of the game sounded like, “If you want an equal shot at salary and resources, if you want independence and if you want to earn your own resources, you’re going to have to compete with men in the workplace.”

One woman I recently heard from was a lawyer. Her boyfriend had just broken up with her using the reason, “You’re too masculine.”

So I want to take this article in a direction you may not expect.

“You’re too masculine” is not very evolved feedback.

Women, I know it hurts, but this wouldn’t be thrown at you by a man who is actually aware of healthy feminine and masculine, rather, this is likely coming from his subconscious desires about the feminine. (I’m not saying this as an insult, I’m saying this based in psychology and observation.) I would recommend taking the feedback as information for self reflection, but not necessarily as an insult, if you can help it.

And men, we actually know we’re overworked and taking care of things we would rather a man take care of. It would be better to stop insulting her and start asking how you are contributing toward it. How can you help her to feel more embodied, safe, and comfortable in her feminine archetype, if that is what you want more of?

Isn’t it just like dominator culture to give punitive and identity-forming feedback to a woman? Isn’t it just like dominator culture to shape a woman one way such that she learns to survive with certain tactics, and then shame her for it?

What is dominator culture? A culture built on some having power and some not having power.

The feedback that “you’re too masculine” is shaming, and here’s the thing – this is something that can actually be worked with. Feminine and masculine polarity can always be re-balanced, or re-assigned between two people. This can be exciting work with a coach or through your own research and implementation. And a man who is accusing a woman of being too masculine is also a man who has embodied a feminine polarity that he is no longer happy with. Don’t shame her for it – learn about how to embody a masculine energetic, embody it, and ask her if she wants to practice embodying more of the feminine polarity. I promise you, she probably does. She’s probably tired of holding the world up all the time and would love to experience letting go of the masculine tendencies she’s learned. Try her!

I couldn’t look at this woman and tell her to shrug off her husband using this as an excuse to divorce her, and I would never want to.

But my general feeling is that women, if this has happened to you, it’s okay. Here are some suggestions on how to move forward.

See it for what it is. There is some truth to it – you have masculine tendencies and they probably serve you at work. It’s okay to ask yourself what of this “masculine” energy you also may want to let go of in certain situations or love relationships. Sometimes for women, what looks like “masculine” energy is actually a self-protective energy.

2. Everyone has masculine and feminine inside of us, so there’s no need to abandon the masculine within you altogether. The masculine is needed for things like structure, earning an income, keeping a schedule. I’m not saying these are “man” things, but they are aspects of masculine energy. When said like that, it’s easy to see that we all have both.

3. Begin to ask yourself, “What are healthy qualities of feminine and masculine, and what are unhealthy qualities?” For example, domination is an unhealthy masculine energy, but leadership is a healthy quality. Try to consciously choose what feels healthy, more and more.

4. Decide if you want to hold the feminine or the masculine pole in relationships. Regardless of the gender of two people, one person (in any given situation, or generally) holds the masculine pole and one holds the feminine pole. Of course, two people can also create amazing, conscious balance within themselves, but honestly, feminine and masculine polarity is part of what makes a relationship fun and juicy. So if you are masculine at work in a leadership role, how do you shift into a feminine role with your male partner if your choice truly is to hold the feminine polarity? I can certainly help couples shift this dynamic in their lives, and another resource to look into may be Dr. Patricia Allen’s work.

5. Welcome any feedback or realization you may be receiving about being “overly masculine” as an invitation to get to know the feminine. A few friends of mine with excellent resources for coming to know the feminine are Liz Kelly, the author of Home to Her and the creator of the Home to Her podcast. Liz is always researching and sharing the “Her-storical perspective,” as she calls it. Also, Sarah Grady has developed a body of work called Homecoming which is an excellent path for women to re-embody their feminine nature. And, of course, I created over 144 episodes of the Sacred Remembering Podcast, which encourages women to trust their direct knowing and path of reawakening not only to the feminine, but to what healthy union of feminine and masculine actually looks like.

I could tell you more from a psychological perspective what is really going on in a man’s own feminine / masculine dynamics both internally and with his residual mother wounding, but sometimes I feel like I’ve already analyzed men enough. So for today, I’ll end here and I’ll say that no one is “too” anything.

We are humans who inherited life in a patriarchal system, and this is an exciting time for us to come to consciousness about how to utilize feminine and masculine as paths of personal and collective awakening.

If we don’t like it, we don’t need to insult others. We need to start getting curious about what we truly desire our relationship with these archetypes and energies to be moving forward.

If you are looking for support in re-balancing, re-harmonizing, or re-defining feminine and masculine in your life and relationships, schedule a consultation at www.sarahpoet.com/book today. I’d love to support you and help us all to move past our hurtful misunderstandings.

How do men respond to female entrepreneurship? Here’s my TOP TEN.

It takes consciousness and the transmutation of shadow-masculinity in order to actually uplift the work of women, but he does it because he knows it serves us all when he does.

I was walking in the woods recently, early morning as per usual, and all of the content for this blog started to download through my intuition. I felt the genuine inspiration and got out my phone to voice record myself.

I listen to that voice of intuition and the muse of inspiration. This was a fun blog post to put together, somewhat cathartic in allowing myself to name things out loud that I’ve spent years experiencing and examining (and healing).

I don’t write it to bitch, shame, or blame men. I do write it to call awareness – to female entrepreneurs who need some context for what they may be experiencing and for men to hopefully self-examine their level of allyship for females trying to make a difference in this world.

Do all female entrepreneurs want to make a difference? No, I’m generalizing. But we are living at a time when more women than ever are starting businesses in order to make the world a better place, in order to help fix inequities, and in order to make their living in creative and beneficial ways.

My business is a coaching and consulting company in the area of masculine / feminine reconciliation. I serve as a coach to any gendered human, but I specialize in the energetic dynamics between men and women as we come out of patriarchy and look to relate in new and sovereign ways.

I started my business in 2017 with a brief period of overlap as I left my former career in education. Perhaps because I work in this arena, I both notice nuance in gender relations as well as have had to deal with quite a bit.

Please enjoy my top 10 ways men have responded to my female entrepreneurship. Names may or may not have been changed because I may or may not desire to protect the identities of the men I’m referencing.

TOP TEN RESPONSES TO FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP (in no particular order):

1: “Give me your energy for free but don’t make me look at my own shit, especially not my unresolved shit about my mama.”

Eivind ran an international men’s group and invited me to write for his members. I agreed to write a short column per week, and I agreed to do it for free! I was just starting off, after all, and this man had an established group. I was a guest in his space! I just offered over my energy for free, hoping it would lead to new paid leads.

I posted content weekly, and I noticed a very clear trend. When I uplifted and exalted masculinity, men cheered my posts. When I added in a bit of a call to action (“Please look at this shadow behavior, gentlemen”) the men would oppose or even attack me in the comments.

I pointed this out to the leadership of the group, and this is when I really began to understand that there was so much work for men to do even beyond joining a men’s group – they had to reconcile with the feminine and women. The leadership couldn’t understand this because they hadn’t done it themselves (something I have seen repeatedly in men in men’s organizations). Eivind “stuck up” for the men who were offended, rather than supporting the woman who was writing content for him for free. So, I stopped.

Explanation: This behavior is based in a lack of actual honor for the feminine and wanting women to continue to stroke the man’s ego (or… you know… other places) in order to continue to self-inflate and validate his importance. It’s also based in an unresolved Mother Wound where his internal little boy still kind of hates / kind of craves the feminine as Mother.

2. The dominator / withholding:

When I stopped working with an old friend in order to start my own business, I left with an ask that he look at the “good old boy” nature inside of the organization we had built together. Branden did three things in response.

One, he turned white as a ghost and looked like he was going to have a heart attack for two weeks because he found me to be so scary. Two, he never spoke to me again and had HR work up a deal with me to get me out of the door as soon as possible. And three, he refused to ever give any referrals, even though my new coaching business was an extension of services for the population we served. Everyone would have benefitted from referrals to my new company, but he refused based on temperament. I left an industry months earlier than expected with zero referral contacts given the stand he took.

All cooperation was out the window and he did what he had to do to cover his reputation among colleagues.

Explanation: This behavior is based in domination of women through withholding of resources, making it harder on the woman to succeed. This is very common in men who see women’s liberation and voice as a threat, and it’s scary AF for women going through it (which is the dominator’s point).

3. “I think I love you!”

There were many men, mostly in the periphery that I did not know well or at all, who, upon finding my work, thought that because I was a woman who understood and empathized with what men are going through, that I must actually be meant for them. I received many messages in my social media inboxes with such proclamations. “You get it! I think we’re meant for one another!”

Explanation: This behavior is consumptive and this man subconsciously wants to eat up the feminine and have it all to himself! It’s based in projection and unhealed Mother Wound (notice a trend there).

4. “Fuck you then, I don’t love you.”

Because of my work, some men who I partnered with did not expect me to have flaws. While in a way, this is flattering that someone would think this is even possible, this is also completely unrealistic and sets everyone up for failure. Also, there is a deep rescuer pattern in this dynamic, which I of course played into for a host of reasons, including: the vulnerability of this path including resource vulnerability, my own desire to partner, and the genuine desire to be met.

Explanation: This behavior of the rescuer/hero in men always backfires because it’s based on projections all around, and this man will find that his hero facade doesn’t know what to do with a real woman, and so he’ll reject her when he feels his own vulnerability, commonly following the path of the dominator or taking the fastest escape route possible. To the woman, this feels like harsh abandonment and a reiteration of a lack of support.

5. “I see you, and I want to uplift you, but I don’t know how.”

Men in this category are very loving and they want to support you and what you’re doing, but they support you through their love only and not action. What action would look like as if a man were to tell his friends, or contacts in business, that you are someone he trusts and recommends. Men are more likely to hire a woman coach and gender equity consultant when another man tells him that it is safe to work with you.

Another iteration of this is, “I’ll pray for you.” I’m talking about the kind spiritual man who legitimately wants you to do well but is telling you that he’ll pray for you, not the religious man who is praying for your unresolved sins and entry to heaven – those are different. The man who isn’t judging you and who is offering to pray for you is being nice, however, you may or may not need his prayer. You may need him to take some nice juicy action instead, or ask you, “How can I support you?”

If you are a man who genuinely loves a female entrepreneur in your life, how can you take action (a masculine attribute) to help catapult her work and make it more visible? What kind of masculine oomph do you want to contribute?

Do not assume that the world is ready to uplift female entrepreneurs. Don’t leave her to go it alone. If you love her, lift her up. It’s actionable and helpful.

6. “I act like I support you, but I really just want to fuck you.”

Mike was informed spiritually, had done a lot of his own inner work regarding masculine archetypes, and seemed to understand the feminine at least more than most. For years, I thought he actually understood my mission and supported it.

He asked me to model for a photo shoot on feminine archetypes, and I did it because I trusted his intentions at the time.

Later, while I was in the process of a breakup, he took me out to dinner and told me how he had always had feelings for me (a married man). If I had not averted the conversation, I do not know what he would have been willing to do that night.

He was also very wealthy, and years into our friendship, I asked him for his sincere help and uplifting my work, work that he continually told me the world needs, at a time when I did not have money for rent given the ups and downs of running your own business (especially as a female entrepreneur.)

Money can definitely bring out all of our most subconscious shit, and he seemed to revert into an uncomfortable ex-husband/father identity who had been taken advantage of before, being very stingy and claiming not to have resources to help.

All the talk of supporting my work was talk, and maybe even something he got off on. He wanted me to pose in front of his camera, which I did for his art exhibit, and yet when I needed actual resources to keep my life going, all support folded. This dynamic is a net-deficit to the feminine/woman and is self-serving to the man.

Men, it is a beautiful thing to actually put your financial resources into supporting a woman and female creator, single mother in your life, or, hell, just to make a woman’s life easier. It’s an aspect of healthy masculinity to be provisional. It’s not a man’s sole purpose, but if you are well-resourced, sharing is an attribute.

Men, if you A) reject money, or B) just want to fuck or self-aggrandize, PLEASE do not ask a female entrepreneur (or any woman) for her sex, time, or energy.

7. “That’s cute.”

There’s not much more that needs to be said about this one. I had men who saw me as a respected professional in my career in education and knew that I was formulating innovative, trauma-informed coaching solutions, and never took it seriously. “That’s cute. Good luck!”

This is, by the way, a primary energetic in the way the world responds to female entrepreneurship, regardless of gender. Many female friends will also click “like” a social media post but never directly refer to my work. There is a lack of awareness that we’re not here to entertain, we’re here to change the world and make an actual living while doing it.

(So please go refer your friends to ten female entrepreneurs as soon as you’re done reading this post. Thank you.)

8. “This is really great, but for some reason I won’t tell anybody about it”

It takes courage for a man to step into a healing space with a woman, especially when the healing space is about feminine /masculine and his vulnerability. I have received incredible testimonials from men who experienced life changing sessions, but to my knowledge (because I never got another client from their referrals), they kept it to themselves. So they experienced something incredible, but there was not an awareness or impetus to share their experience in order to uplift other men having a similar experience, potentially because of shame and stigma related to receiving this kind of help either individually or in their partnership.

If you have a vulnerable experience as a man, and it improves your life, do you think that other men would benefit from hearing about it? Tell them!

9. “See, here’s what you do…”

I love masculine business advice – when I ask for it. Some of the best coaches I’ve had were men, and I’ve also been known to ask male friends to “coach my inner masculine.” I came from the career field of education, where I wasn’t adept at business because I didn’t have to be. Business requires both feminine and masculine.

But the thing is, most women are heavily indoctrinated with how to “behave like men” in the business world and we don’t need unsolicited advice thrown at us about how to do business in the way that men have been accustomed to doing business.

Also, I’m intending to do business very differently – in actual feminine and masculine harmony – which is something very new to the world. In this way, we need to collaborate and learn from one another. I want to learn from you, and please be willing to learn from me, too.

10. “This is great, how can I support you?”

And then finally, we have the men who either have experienced the work or respect the woman trying to do the big thing of changing the world, and they decide on their own fruition to spread the word directly with their contacts!

They introduce you to their affiliates.

They repost your social media posts.

They refer you directly by word of mouth.

They offer to coach you when you give a TEDx.

They ask, “How can I support you?”

They let you know that you can always call on them.

They put actual cash behind your mission, no questions asked, or pay your rent if it comes to it.

They write testimonials voluntarily.

They invite you into their men’s groups to share your feminine perspective and expertise.

They put you in front of their organizations and let you teach.

There are these good men, and we need more support like this.

This man has done a lot of his own work to clear the other shadow-masculine behaviors.

He has an embodied understanding of himself, realizes we are all still growing, is comfortable with his own leadership and vulnerability both, and does not see you as competition. He has no need to be angry at women. He does not wrap his identity up in how he helps you or how you make him feel, rather, he knows that it is an aspect of conscious masculinity to uplift the work of women, and to make sure that the women in his community are feeling supported and provided for.

He uplifts the work of women because it is just the right thing for the masculine to do.

Conclusion:

I used to get frustrated that more men weren’t supporting my work, and then I realized that the fact that they weren’t is a function of the very dynamics my work seeks to address.

Said differently – it takes consciousness and the transmutation of shadow-masculinity in order to actually, purely, and beautifully uplift the work of women because he knows it serves us all when he does. All men won’t automatically understand how to support women’s work, and that is a part of the process that my efforts actually seek to serve.

One of ten men might “get it,” and I can actually be of service, in the heart of the feminine, to the growing consciousness of the nine. That is my work to do because it’s a part of my mission – it’s not every woman’s work to do to help men “get it.”

And so to women, it is my advice that we not focus too much on what a man can not provide us while we do this thing of female entrepreneurship, even though that may be heartbreaking or a struggle and a half.

Keep going, ask for help from other women or men who you know do not have an alternate agenda to vampire-suck your energy, and give yourself a high-five for walking the delicate balance of being an independent way-shower and also not trying to hold up the whole damn world by yourself. We want and need support, and every-woman-for-herself is fucking exhausting. We want to call on and lean on our brothers, husbands, and lovers, and I believe in a world where we’re able to do this more and more as men heal their projections of the feminine. We also need to keep healing our anger and projections on men. We’ve got this. But shoo, I know it’s big, big work.

And men, to you I say:

Thank you for reading this!

Where do you see yourself in this “top 10?”

How have you responded to women owned businesses?

How do you directly or indirectly support women businesses, and how can you support women more directly, generously, and altruistically?

There is coaching available to men, women, organizations, and couples who are disentangling the energetics of gender and patriarchy via www.sarahpoet.com. Reach out and let’s do the good work of clearing our shit to better show up for one another.

Who can you recommend this article or my coaching work to today?? Thank you!

Now, go recommend nine more women to your network. Thank you.

How you can make feminine leadership more sustainable for women.

Just because women are in positions of leadership does not equate to the return of sustainable feminine leadership or respect for feminine qualities. True feminine leadership happens when we rebalance the inequitability of feminine & masculine in our actions, efforts, and energetics, and ensure the sustainability of systems, including the women themselves.

Last spring, as the new leaves were returning to the trees and the ferns were unfurling, I visited a year-one school startup to consult with the two women who were running it.

The ideas for the school were all about innovation, keeping children close to nature, and preserving the ideals of curiosity, self sovereignty, and relationship. The school was beautifully visioned and the positive response from the community had made for fast growth. And these women leaders were exhausted.

They were working incredibly long hours and the school had not yet met financial goals, which meant that it was running at a deficit. In response, to take care of the children and the vision, they worked harder. Of course they did. It’s what women visionaries do.

They were trying to get it to go, powering through, even despite not getting paid because they were paying the teachers first. And I was there as a school consultant, yes, but also a systems analyst, a women’s leadership guide, and as someone who connects land/vision/people together when there is a mission at work. In other words, I’m looking at systems, including the energetic flow in the system as a whole. Where is it leaking energy? Where is there an area that is out of integrity with the flow of the entire system of the mission?

And so I asked them, “Are you okay running this school if it requires that the school be run on feminine depletion? You are looking at creating a holistic school model, but what of your model is requiring the feminine to continue to run on depleted resources and energy?”

I heard back from them recently, a full half a year later, and the administrator told me, “There is not a day that goes by that I do not ask myself that question. It was the greatest guiding question I’ve received.”

You see, our systems have historically run on feminine depletion.

What do I mean by that? In short, I mean that in a patriarchal way of building and operating, we over-rely on masculine energetics: build, push, create, exert, make happen. And when we stay in that energetic for too long, we create an imbalance, which forces the feminine energetic to go into submission (getting what it can where it can, like 6 hours of sleep, a little exposure, or a little congratulatory high five now and again) or it’s just forgotten about altogether (which we’ve seen in our modern workplaces in the quest for more profit, more wins.)

When the feminine is depleted, we get women who over-give, women with hormonal disorders and weird health symptoms, the pushing down of things like intuition and taking time for an idea to gestate, and the unrealistic expectation that we are able to stay continually in go-mode.

But this of course doesn’t only affect women. It affects men in that they resist vulnerability or not having an answer, always wanting to maintain the image that everything is under control. And it has affected our ideas of leadership across the globe.

You can also begin to deduce from my simple examples here that it is not a gendered issue, and we’d be well served to move beyond the typical conversations of gender in the workplace and include instead these considerations of what healthy and unhealthy feminine and masculine leadership look like, and how they are expressed.

Historically, we’ve made “women’s leadership” and “feminine leadership” synonymous, and I want to state explicitly that they are not. Just because a woman is in a position of leadership does not mean that she is enacting feminine principles in the least. Even to write that, I can imagine that some readers may bristle at the word “feminine” being inserted into a conversation about leadership because the stigma is still that the feminine can’t lead for it’s “softness.”

But I will tell you that when we look at some of the most innovative research and actions taking place in the field of leadership, what is happening is the re-incorporation of the feminine archetype and feminine leadership behaviors. To name a few: shared decision making, collaboration, flexible scheduling, and allowing teams extended periods of time to create. All of these are aspects of feminine leadership whether we call it that or not.

Then why name it? Why name it as feminine or masculine? I strongly believe that in doing so, we can save a lot of time with a conceptual framework that also reduces many of the unspoken and tricky issues that are chalked up to gender in the workplace. It’s not differences in gender that are most important. What is most important is whether or not leaders value and know how to lead, incorporating both feminine and masculine leadership qualities, and whether they extend that to their cultures and teams.

Going back to the two women that I was coaching, as I asked them this question, “Are you okay with this place running on feminine depletion?,” they had already had an understanding of feminine and masculine, and so when I asked it, the real and deeper issue became more clear.

In trying to do the right thing, they were exhausting themselves and also running on exhausted financial resources. We can see that such a situation is unsustainable. And it is in the reconstructing of both the finances and the activities of the school into an equitable feminine / masculine collaboration that both of these issues can be corrected.

A world that didn’t value the feminine was also the world that created a very serious deficit in environmental sustainability. The two go hand in hand and this topic could be elaborated on quite extensively. And so for today, I’ll conclude that feminine leadership, which I would encourage all leaders to embrace regardless of gender, would not allow for the depletion of the feminine energetic, the earth, the resources, or the people. Often in our quest for power and profit, these are the very things that are depleted and overlooked. Women and men, and leaders of all kinds, it’s time for true thriving to include the wellness and sustainability of the feminine and masculine in harmony.

Sarah Poet is available for consultations with leaders of any gender and maintains an eye to the energetic efficiency of systems as we create a more sustainable and equitable world. To schedule, visit www.sarahpoet.com/book.

“Birthing Upward” – Energy dynamics of the creative process are changing.

Feminine & Masculine energetics in new paradigm business will not be top-down, rather, bottom-up.

*Esoteric in nature, you can read this post as an “energy update” and ask yourself how it applies to your creativity, your masculine/feminine relationships, and organizational structure in new-paradigm businesses.*

This week, in my meditations and client sessions, there has been a theme and a common vision – that of “Birthing upward.”

As I tune into this further, this seems to have to do with the way in which we are now optimally creating on the planet, having to do with feminine now leading the masculine.

You can envision this by feeling into the following visuals.

We are accustomed to “birthing downwards” on this planet. The masculine would impart the seed (of consciousness or creation) into the feminine. HE would do the giving (first), that would go into her (second), and then the formation of the creation (ex a human embryo, a business, or any other creation coming into form) would occur (third).

This view could be inherently patriarchal because there is a “top down” assumption. The masculine would impart the seed, wisdom, power, authority, etc, and it would go downward through the process. This is also the energetic of old system hierarchies itself, with an assumed top-down leader, usually male, who makes the decisions for the many and essentially determines the creation. As we know, sadly, this method of authoritative masculine actually stifles true creativity. This is why we are seeing a lot of organizational structures now giving teams time to collaborate on new creations – time to derive the idea and spend in the mess of creativity is actually a feminine energetic resurging.

Now, I will attempt to share with you what I am seeing with “birthing upward.” Please keep in mind that ultimately, masculine and feminine unify as One, and yet, there are some energetics that are actively restructuring as our planetary energies realign and re-harmonize. So I am not saying that “women are taking over” or that the “feminine will win” or anything absurd and polarized like that. But I am noticing a very big “counter” energetic occurring to the polarized world as it has existed, with the masculine initiating the creative process and the formation of the creations.

I see “birthing upward” not as the only way it is ever meant to be, but that this is a “shifting in polarity” so to speak as the earth is in the process of re-harmonizing. So this is likely taking place in the earth grid structure as well as in our human bodies, psyches, relationships, business formations, organizational restructuring, etc.

Birthing upward does not start with the masculine, rather, it starts with the womb. The womb of creation is the infinite space into which the masculine seed of consciousness can be magnetized. We have been preparing Her to actually become the leading energetic source of what will now be created.

Many of us women have been doing a lot of clearing of trauma, dense energy, miasma, patriarchal exchange energetics, and womb hijackings. The feminine has been energetically advancing its sovereignty, in women’s bodies and in the earth grid. The womb energy of the collective is seemingly more clear than it has been in many thousands of years – potentially enough to cause this polarity shift, it would seem.

In a session with two men, a generation younger than myself, who are envisioning a collective and collaborative new business structure that is focused on community, I was intuitively guided to share with them this concept of “birthing upward.” I was also guided (as in, I was channeling & communicating from their soul business creation information to them) to have them tune into the “womb space” on their body first. They were pointed toward acknowledging the presence and intelligence of this energetic center in their own male bodies. This would be required for their new leadership.

There was to be no “top down” leadership, though healthy masculine structure and consciousness were welcome and necessary. But hierarchical power structures were old paradigm and unwelcome, which these young men already realize, but their questions for the session were about what the new structures for organizational development look and feel like. Leadership in a new paradigm of business is an interesting inquiry. Do we let it go and have just shared leadership? Do we not have leaders? Was masculine leadership always wrong?

I think the answer to all of those questions is “no.” Masculine clarity and decision making is necessary for running effective businesses, regardless of the gender expressing it. We also don’t need men to fear their own leadership – and we need more men to be very comfortable in their expressed masculinity and we should never shame men for their attempts at leadership (rather hone the intelligence of it). However, as these young men are realizing, we will be restructuring organizational teams and redefining leadership in the near future to meet the needs of the people and planet – and what I am seeing is that these new ways of “birthing upward” will also be more profitable.

I was guided to share with them that the “fertile soil” of building from the ground up, which included engaging, optimizing, and celebrating the enthusiasm of all participants in the formation of what the leadership would build would be the “birthing upward” approach for the success of their business formation.

Widening the vision again now with etheric metaphor, the womb of all creation is the fertile ground, no longer into which we will plant the seeds, but now, the fertile ground of the cosmic womb of creation (the feminine) will determine which consciousness to attract to it (the seed), thereby activating the birth of certain (new) creations.

The womb is now attracting the seed of its own choosing with a certain magnetism. The cosmic womb (deep, eternal feminine) is now calling to it the light of consciousness (deep, eternal masculine.) From there, and this is the most significant part, the structure is forming. The feminine is magnetizing the consciousness that will lead to new structures. The feminine is attracting the consciousness of its choosing.

The collective will attract its new leaders. The people will determine our next direction. The womb will attract the consciousness – this is “birthing upwards.”

Any person who is able to read and follow this does not see this as a “women flipping the power script” feminist agenda, rather, the delicate and powerful shift in polarity and honestly, an energetic directive, coming from the Holy Mother, and the Holy Father is ready and welcome to participate. The recalibration is in effect.

If you are starting a new business based on a “soul calling” and would like to do a channeled session with the business entity itself, if you are looking at how to redesign leadership structures in your organization to make it more inclusive, or if you just feel the intuitive nudge – schedule a consultation with me at www.sarahpoet.com/book.

Woman, What is your Masculine Template?

For years, I’ve been talking about the necessity as women for us to heal our relationship to the masculine. We have an old imprint of what “masculinity” means based on cultural standards, and we have to wash that clean and open our minds to what else is possible. I’m not so much interested in defining masculinity as I am inviting us into relationship with the masculine archetype.

I’ve been upgrading my masculine template lately.

While I’ve been healing my relationship to the masculine for many years, this new language of the “masculine template” recently came into my consciousness. It’s been a really helpful conceptualization and I hope that sharing it is helpful for you as well.

“Masculinity” I see as a narrative full of cultural assumptions and that’s not really my interest. Knowing the masculine archetype in both women and men and being in right relationship to it is what I am interested in.

I want to talk about the “template” that we have of the masculine, and I mean the masculine archetype. This template informs literally everything we do as women, and we don’t even realize it. Women are literally always forming their behavior based on the “template” of the masculine they hold in their consciousness.

Just this week, in a coaching call with a woman, she was able to see that her deep resistance to the concept of structure was because she subconsciously associated structure with the masculine and oppression. So – it’s happening in your subconscious literally every day, all day, that you are behaving in relation or reaction to your “masculine template” in your consciousness. I promise you.

I’ll explain further and take us deeper into this juicy, worthy, and potentially slightly uncomfortable contemplation.

As women, we have an “orientation” to masculine. We have a set of associations with men/patriarchy that are rather subconscious. We assume certain things of men and come to expect certain behaviors from men – not all of which are positive. This orientation to the masculine also includes all of the memories and imprints of wrongdoing that men have done. And, to take this to the depth that it really needs to go – we have imprints of the wrongdoings that patriarchy and religion have done, which are both associated with domination and oppression of women and the feminine.

Let’s look at some more real life examples of how the masculine template we carry influences our lives.

A woman was raised by a single mother with an abuse history who worked her butt off to secure minimal resources and basic needs. This woman formed beliefs from her childhood such as, “Men don’t show up, I’ll always be on my own, I have to work really hard but it won’t pay off.” She still carries these in her adult life and it forms and shapes the way she interacts with work, men, money, and even the extent to which she values herself.

How can you relate to that?

Another example: A woman is super talented in her work but it goes unrecognized by her male colleagues. She forms beliefs like, “Men are just in it for themselves, I have to work twice as hard to be recognized, my ideas as a woman are undervalued.” She spends her entire workday energetically responding to these perceptions. It shapes her.

Can you relate?

Last example: A woman grows up as a girl inside traditional religion and hears messages about subservience and being seen not heard. She grows up to be a good girl, silently frustrated with kowtowing to men who don’t even live in alignment to the true virtuous messages of the religion, but use it as a way to be dominant. She forms an orientation to the masculine that says, “I need to ask permission to be me. If I don’t behave I won’t be loved or provided for. I just have to keep giving myself to men and volunteer causes even though I’m not fulfilled.”

How did your relationship with this supposed “male god” influence your relationship with the masculine?

Each of these women has an orientation to the masculine.

Each of these women have so very naturally confused the behavior of men and religion for the true masculine. It’s happening everywhere, so commonly, that we don’t even question it. Entire feminist movements have been oriented toward fighting against what is conceptually in front of them – an orientation toward an oppressive masculine.

When we see the masculine as destructive, abuser, oppressor, dominator – we carry that as our masculine template. The template we then orient to. When we have the formative experiences of shadow masculine, including trauma and oppression, our psyches, our cellular structure, our bodies begin to orient to all men, all ideas of masculine, all masculine essences as oppressive. The template was formed, and then the template is what we carry out.

“Men are dangerous.”

“Men are takers.”

“I’ll have to do it all on my own.”

“I’ll have to give him sex if I want to secure my livlihood.”

It’s so common for women to carry a template of an old, wounded, shadow masculine, isn’t it? We’ve grown up in patriarchy, for thousands of years now, and so our orientation toward this immature, aggressive, dominator masculine is well formed. It is the template to which we orient our lives.

But it’s not serving us. In fact, it’s keeping women very trapped. It’s causing women to expend massive amounts of time and energy defending themselves, hustling extra hard, giving away life force energy, fighting against something, feeling as if something is being taken from them, etc.

Orienting toward an outdated template is a trap. And, it’s a choice.

Women can upgrade our template of the masculine. And we can do this whether or not we have the external evidence of it.

And we must.

When women with masculine-related trauma in this old and outdated template ask me how to heal their relationship to the masculine, the first thing I tell them is that this happens inside of their hearts.

Women habitually look outside of themselves for the examples of masculinity that they can have faith in – and when they think they’ve found that person, they put all their eggs in that basket. We enter relationships with men who we think, “This guy isn’t like the rest, he won’t hurt me.” We look for men who understand “sacred masculine” and do men’s work.

But this is not actually the way we heal our masculine template (because nine times out of ten, we’re just attracting more of the old template when we search for it in a man). We update the masculine template in our hearts, in our imaginations, in our own healing journey with the masculine and in our own contemplation.

We heal our masculine template by healing our traumas associated with the masculine, which of course can take some time and is big work. But, if you’re reading this, you’re up for that work.

Begin to ask yourself what the evolved masculine, the sacred masculine, even the masculine aspect of God looks like to you. What does your heart know and dream?
THIS is the creation of YOUR NEW masculine template! This is where YOU get to recreate the masculine that is possible and what you want to see. You get to feel it, imagine it, and then *form your behavior in relation to this new template.

Even before you have the external evidence that it exists, this is what you do.

For example, I know that the entire universe is comprised of both feminine and masculine and that there would never, ever be a Holy Father who would renounce the importance of the Holy Mother. I know that religious representation of God as a dominating force that positioned women as less-than is a total farce. Therefore, I don’t have to look for a church that understands this in order to validate my upgraded template. I can investigate what I believe and trust in my own heart. I can redefine my personal spiritual relationship with the Holy Father. In doing so, I get a new definition of that divine masculine essence, and I can orient toward that instead.

I can *choose* to orient toward the painful past template of masculine through the church or I can *choose* to orient toward a progressive and restored template of the divine masculine.

In this way, I re-imprint my own psyche and not only that, it changes the way I live. Maybe I don’t walk around as guarded or defensive anymore. Maybe I relax in how hard I push myself because I discover more trust in a benevolent provider masculine divine. (Real life example right there.)

Or, if you’ve not had good experiences in love relationships with men (maybe because you’ve been attracting from an outdated template), then you get to begin to rewrite your template of what is possible in love. You get to imagine it by developing your own relationship and reflection to the question, “What is masculine? What do I want in relation to masculine and men?” You get to dream it up, and then that dream becomes your template, and you not only orient to life from that new place and feel much better, but you also get to attract your next partner from this upgraded template.

Ask yourself what template of the masculine you are orienting to. Additional reflection questions could include:

How do I believe I will be treated by men?
How do I relate to the masculine archetype in my work?
How much do I trust I’ll be provided for vs how much do I work super hard to ensure that I meet all my own needs?
What do I believe is the definition of the divine masculine?
If I were to develop a relationship to the divine masculine, what would that look like?
In what ways do I trust or do I not trust the masculine in men or God?
What do I expect from men?

The template can always be upgraded, and in doing so, you are doing the entire world a service by re-imagining masculinity and orienting toward that upgraded template. You might not see it yet, but if you carry that template in your body, mind, psyche and orient your life and behavior toward it (instead of a victimized or wounded orientation), you will essentially birth it into being with your faith, curiosity, and the energetic template you carry.

Women, what is the masculine that you choose to relate to? Start living it. Today.

Lower masculine is not the destroyer, but it can be.

With so many women angry at men and with so many women lumping together “masculine” with “patriarchy,” I felt it time to address this.

With so many women angry at men, with so many women who have been harmed by men and patriarchy, and with so many women lumping together “masculine” with “patriarchy,” I felt it time to address this.

I am going to use my own vocabulary to explain this, so please first allow me to define the terms I’m using.

Patriarchy: System of oppression that hijacked feminine energy (including the life force of indigenous people and people of color) and utilized that stolen energy for its own gain. It is a system of destruction, which I say without emotion. I’m simply stating the energetics. Patriarchy is a taker system.

Lower masculine: This is the primarily unconscious and default masculinity in a patriarchy that lives for power, greed, consumption, and its sense of provision and protection are absent or collapsed. Imagine it’s like the opposite of a Kingly masculine like King Arthur embodied. The lower masculine is present in men – for example men that want to feed off of a woman’s life force energy, men that want to have the power and control, or men that don’t have a sense of provisional capacity to care for women and children and they spend a lot of time feeling like a victim to women. But lower masculine can also be present in women, in organizations, in everyone, because everyone (and every organization, every system) has both feminine and masculine energetics.

Destroyer: This is my term for the dark energy that wants to take from the feminine, from women, from Earth, and from holistic systems. This energy wants to prevent the evolution of consciousness that would include true community values and equal distribution of resources. This energy, in my opinion, fueled patriarchy and we wouldn’t have patriarchy as it stands without it. Patriarchy was successful because of the taker energy, but resulting in massive separation and a depletion of the feminine energetic.

Can lower masculine also include the destroyer energetic? It can, but it is not always true – which is nuanced and the point of this article.

When a woman has been hurt by systems of oppression in her life, for example at work, and she looks around and sees men in suits, and women in pantsuits emulating the men, and she feels targeted by this, she may think to herself and draw the conclusion that, “Men perpetuate destroyer energetics.” But then she can look at the systems, at the fact that women also participate in these destroyer systems, and she can find examples of men who seem to want to help rather than hurt, and she’d have to admit that these two are not one and the same. Equating men with destroyer is actually irresponsible and limiting on the part of women. It limits men’s capacity and is unkind.

Lower masculine can be a destroyer. It can be out for itself and be maliciously willing to take another’s energy (or Earth energy). But it can also be more innocent. It’s still unconscious, so I’m not making excuses or letting it completely off the hook, but unconscious lower masculine behaviors look different. A man can want too much of a woman’s attention, he can put a woman above fulfilling his purpose in the world and find himself lost, or he can avoid his own quest for consciousness in favor of the emotional reinforcement he gets from women in his life, but while this is unconscious and “lower masculine,” it doesn’t make him a destroyer. It can also deplete women’s energy, which feels destructive, but it’s not malicious. Dealing with unconscious lower masculine energetics as a woman is different than a strategy to deal with destroyer energetics. This is nuanced and women may reach out to me privately with their individual situations and questions, which I can answer in private mentorships or in my membership.

A man operating in lower masculine is operating in taker energetics – yes, somewhat, but more because he hasn’t resolved the Mother Wound than anything else. This man is not overtaken by the dark of the Destroyer.

What it looks like when the Destroyer overtakes a man is when a man is in an ego-identification (unconscious) and something within his unresolved ego personality gets triggered. He gets angry about it, maybe has a defensive tendency. Maybe someone in his life asked him to take accountability for something he’s not ready to look at. And instead of allowing himself to see this as an opportunity for his own integration and advancement, he actually attacks the person or system that is trying to get him to look at himself. It’s like a little devil destroyer energy close by says, “Look, he’s susceptible to taking on our energy. Let’s infiltrate.” Or, the man is overtaken by greed, the quest for power, the willingness to destroy the feminine, to dominate to preserve the ego, and the like. A primary doorway for the Destroyer to get into men is also through their avoidant addictions. This leaves his energy body open and susceptible to dark attack.

Can the Destroyer also enter into women or any human? Yes.

Is the Destroyer the equivalent of man or even lower masculinity? No. But it is the equivalent of patriarchy, by definition of patriarchy being a system that perpetually attempts to establish dominion.

Just because a man is unconscious does not make him a destroyer. Women would do well to distinguish this, because you do not need to have so much fear. When we understand these nuances, we can not fear the blanket “masculine” and discern where to draw boundaries, where to support, where to stay in our lane. There are plenty of ways for women to relate to both lower masculine and the destroyer energetic that set them free instead of lock them into these energetics as truth. These do not have to be energetics that you even associate with, except to know your sovereign stance in reference to it.

Lastly, let’s define, for consideration, two more terms:

Conscious Masculinity: The decision to turn the inherited patterns from patriarchy and unconscious/lower masculine into conscious masculine behaviors. This requires much inner excavation and soul reclamation. It requires commitment on the part of men to look at where they sink down low into destroyer or lower masculine tendencies for attention, love, to secure resources, etc. It requires leadership to forge a new paradigm of masculinity that can be trusted and emulated into the future. And, yes, all humans are responsible for their own inner aspect of conscious masculinity. As a cis-gendered woman, I too am responsible for excavating my own inner masculine and continually bringing forth conscious masculine patterns through my actions as well.

Sacred Masculine: This is a very misused term, in my opinion, because many want to apply this to men themselves. The Sacred Masculine is the perfection of the Holy Masculine – the Yang, the Shiva, the Holy Father of Creation. These are pristine energetics that we can reference through archetypes. No doubt, these archetypal templates are activating guides on our path as humans. And, while humans are of course sacred, humans are not archetypes of the sacred. To me, the Archetype of the Holy Father (I’m not referencing religion, but rather the Father of Creation) is pure perfection, and I wouldn’t expect any one person or man to embody it fully. Not as modern day humans with so much confusion and distortion – it’s impossible to be a perfected archetype. And, that’s not the point. The point is to reference the supreme Sacred Masculine archetype as guidance, to invite this template to be an activation in the psyche, and to quest toward integrating the shadow and ego personality toward the sacred expression of masculinity.

I don’t expect men to be perfect emanations of the sacred masculine. I do expect men to become conscious of lower masculine, integrate and heal their Mother Wounding, be as conscious as possible, and not only do I expect men to not perpetuate the Destroyer energetic, I expect men to help set it straight as they embody their warrior nature in preservation and protection of all that is innocent, and that which has been oppressed.

And I expect men to disarm the Destroyer alongside conscious women, if not more so. When men recognize the destroyer for what it is and rise into conscious masculinity, the destroyer will be far less powerful and systems of oppression will lose quite a bit of power.

There is sacred, holy power in masculinity. It should not be cut down, diminished, or lumped with the destroyer.

How a woman heals her relationship to the masculine.

Healing the relationship with the inner & divine masculine is the foundation of our own inner safety, provision, space holding, and discernment.

Last weekend, while hiking in the very cold woods with my pup, I listened to an interview I did with Artemis Rose for her Embody U Podcast. She asked me to come on her show and talk about how a woman heals her relationship to the masculine.

I actually really love this topic. As she says, it’s not talked about enough. But, I do think that it is some of the most crucial work a woman will ever do on herself.

Women often want something from men and judge men for not being able to give it to them.

Or, we spend a lot of time and energy looking for a man that embodies certain characteristics.

No doubt, we are doing what’s called “projecting” our inner, unmet needs of the masculine onto men. It’s very common to do that in our culture, especially as women have been oppressed as a gender for a long time. In the psyches of women, we are very hungry to know and be in relationship with the “sacred masculine.” But what does that mean?

It starts within.

Listen to the episode HERE. This is an important transmission.

Artemis writes, “In today’s episode, Sarah dives deep into a discussion around healing our relationship with the masculine (our own inner masculine, men, and our relationship with God).

How do all of these relate to embodying who we truly are? How does this relate to the feminine? You must listen. She does a beautiful job of simplifying, defining, and articulating how our sacred remembrance rests on the Truth of us diving deep within to reclaim both the sacred feminine and masculine for our own homecoming and inner union.

However, in this episode, she focuses on how important it is to see our relationship with God and our inner masculine as being the foundation and sustenance of our own inner safety, provision, space holding, and discernment.”

To access the Modern Women’s Pathway to Feminine / Masculine Reunification, CLICK HERE.

To expand, first stabilize.

As I type this, I just removed a social media post that I originally thought was casual but really offended some people, which was not my intention and I found to be stressful. I was sorry that I’d caused others stress. I have a to-do list that I’d hoped to get through today but won’t. I’m tired and have a few hours of meetings left today.

So instead of cramming all that out, before the next meeting, I brought my laptop to bed with some quiet music playing in the background, which pleases my nervous system very much, and decided to write on this topic that continues to arise for me lately, like a little whisper that comes into my ear at moments when I feel things spinning just slightly out of equilibrium.

“Stabilize.”

Stabilize the breath. Stabilize the moment.

I’ve honestly been expanding quite a bit lately. I realize looking back that 2021 was a year where I chose more quiet, more family, fewer big choices. I had focus words during last year that included “resourced” and “sustainable,” because I’d really been looking so very closely at this thing of the depletion of feminine energy in my life that continued to sneak up on me just when I thought I’d figured it out.

And as I said in a client call this morning, while talking about these anchoring words that hold our intentions for how we want to feel, what we intend to create, I feel I did experience “resourced” and “sustainable” energy last year in a beautiful way. And then, at the very end of the year, a friend gently called me out and told me it was time to expand.

I had been worried about being out of integrity, charging too much for a program offering, trying to figure out how to offer lower pricing and still get paid what I needed to get paid, and he told me that I was playing small and afraid to charge what the offering was actually worth. I respect his reflection, and so I looked at it and began to listen to the audiobook suggestions he gave me, and long analysis short – he was right. I had become “resourced” and “sustained” but I now needed to expand, and expand what I am wiling to receive. (Read – the *goodness* I am willing to receive!)

I like my family. I like my little life of structure & flow in daily entrepreneurship, I like my clients very much, I like walking my puppy and being a mother to my son. I like it. And 2021 was about recalibration. But now it is time to expand, and I’m ready. Expand the things I am willing to say (even if not everyone gets it or I do challenge some opinions), the number of people I reach, the impact I can have with my time on the planet. It’s time to expand what ceilings I assumed are over my head, expand my monthly minimum of what I’m willing to accept in my income (I learned this from the audiobook – it’s called an “energetic minimum” and this concept is awesome for me at this time), and expand my capacity to love more and more deeply.

And it’s time for me to receive more, as a result of the expansion.

This is inevitable, IF, and only if, I also “stabilize.”

Many times, when coaching a client, I’ve talked about this rubber band effect in personal growth. We’re growing, and that’s like stretching a rubber band, but if you don’t stabilize, that rubber band will snap back into place.

If we want a new normal, a new normal that is a growth edge for us, we have to stabilize when we stretch.

Many times, I’ve gone after growth, but it wasn’t regulated into my nervous system by the time I quickly did the next thing, or got the next negative reaction, or experienced failure, and then *snap* – back to the start.

The expansion can only actually happen if stabilized, and stabilized into the nervous system as well. To take more action on top of anxiousness or worry is absolutely destabilizing. We are working against ourselves in this sense.

So, in this moment, I am stabilizing instead of thinking I just need to zoom to the next thing on the list. I’m writing, something that is to me like creating art, and I’m doing that to stabilize the moment. I’m not completely inactive, and sometimes I might just actually meditate or take a nap. What stabilizes us will not always be the same, from moment to moment or person to person.

I regularly do an exercise called “The Class,” and in it you move your body quickly, activating a cardio response. And then, at the end of the song and the movement, they say “Hand on body, hand on chest,” and say to breathe and notice. This is stabilization in action.

That is exactly one energetic example of what I’ve been working with regarding expansion – actually moving my body in a way that I break an energetic norm and cross a threshold into the new. Maybe I lift more weight for longer than I did the day before, or hold the breath in kundalini yoga for longer, or jump harder while doing The Class. And then I witness – “Ah, I can expand, and then I can stabilize.”

When I’m working and creating, and I have bigger goals (which I do), I don’t get them done in anxiousness. I get them done in stability.

When I’m parenting or training a puppy, I don’t get it done by being quick, short, or demanding. I do it by stabilizing the energy in our surroundings.

When I’m working with clients, I’m stabilizing the space. That’s my job.

Before, when I was writing, it was like they were all flying around at once and it was hard to see one piece of writing through. I now organize my ideas by first purposefully stabilizing.

Stabilize the moving parts. Stabilize the breath and the nervous system. This is how you increase your capacity – not by rushing, forcing, or multitasking.

Energetically, we can become used to a certain capacity, like I did in 2021. Like we all do. And that capacity might even be working okay for us. But it might also be an excuse not to grow, and not to receive more of what we actually really want.

I’m ready to expand. I’m ready to receive more, and in a way that the stretch doesn’t have to snap back.

Are you?

If you’d like to “Breathe to Receive” with me, that is the name of my next offering, coming mid January. In every way, we will stabilize through the breath to increase your capacity to receive. Ensure that you are on my mailing list at SarahPoet . com and check your emails for sign up information.

Here’s to an expansive, and stable, 2022.